Hoppers and tank trailers have been commonly employed for many years to transport bulk commodities such as industrial and food products, including industrial products such as pelletized plastics and the like, and food products such as milled flours and the like. The hoppers often include multiple sections or compartments for receiving and holding the products, with each section or compartment having a generally conical or tapered bottom portion terminating at a discharge outlet. Discharge or dump valves are typically associated with the discharge outlets and inverted hopper tee assemblies are generally located below the valve positions.
When such a hopper or tank trailer reaches its destination, the bulk commodity must be unloaded therefrom. Typically, this is affected by connecting the tee assemblies for unloading and then effecting the pneumatic unloading of the bulk commodity from the hopper into a clean and sanitary pipe line. In such regard, the tee assemblies are connected at opposite ends thereof to generally horizontal pipes or hoses that are connected, in turn, to the hopper tees of other sections or compartments. Such connections establish a generally horizontal path through the hopper tees and connected pipes or hoses for the flow of the materials discharged from the hopper sections or compartments.
Actual transfer of the bulk commodity that has been transported in the hopper is then accomplished by opening the discharge or dump valve, typically a butterfly valve, associated with the discharge outlet at the bottom of the hopper, thereby allowing the bulk commodity material to be moved out of such hopper by gravity flow or by air pressure vibration into and through the vertical section of the hopper tee. As the bulk commodity material drains through the vertical section of the hopper tee into the horizontal portion of the hopper tee, such material is directionally directed through such horizontal portion by a pressure differential in the pipe, typically occasioned by a blower or the like disposed at one end of the flow path, to cause such material to be directed to and discharged to a desired receptacle or area.
The hopper tee assemblies may be of welded or cast iron or like construction, or may be of a newer swing-away design. Exemplary hopper tee assemblies of various types are described in various prior art patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,396, U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,681, U.S. Pat. No. 6,607,177, U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,123, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,362, among others.
The discharge or dump valves, which, as already mentioned, are typically of a butterfly type design, are generally configured to be manually operable and to have associated therewith a rotatable valve stem that projects generally sidewardly outwardly and generally horizontally near the top of the vertical section of the hopper tee to be complementarily engaged by a valve handle so as to be rotated by the operation of such valve handle to open and close the valve. Typically, the projecting portion of the valve stem has been formed or machined at its outer end to have a non-circular cross-section so as to be easily engageable by a complementarily configured socket portion associated with the valve handle.
Often, the valve construction also includes a valve lock disc or plate, generally of a roughly circular configuration, mounted to be generally perpendicular to the projecting valve stem and to extend radially outward from such valve stem, with a plurality of spaced notches, and intervening teeth therebetween, formed along a portion of the outer periphery thereof to form valve lock positions for the valve when such notches, sometimes hereinafter referred to variously as valve lock position notches or valve lock notches, are suitably engaged by a complementary lever tip of the valve handle.
Prior art valve handles have included constructions comprising a longitudinal, generally substantially straight, handle bar or like body member, often with a grip portion near its proximate end, and with a socket configuration at its distal end adapted to relatively snugly engage the projecting valve stem to allow the handle and the engaged valve stem to be manually rotatable by the handle user to open and close the valve. Some valve handles have also included a shorter, also generally straight, lock lever member, sometimes hereinafter referred to more simply as a lock lever, extending generally adjacent to the handle bar, from near the proximate end of the handle bar to a position short of the distal end thereof, and pivotally connected to such handle bar at an intermediate location between the proximate and distal ends thereof to ordinarily bias the proximate end of the lock lever away from the proximate end of the handle body member and the distal end of the lock lever towards the distal end of the handle bar. In such constructions, the lock lever has generally included a lever tip near the distal end of such lock lever sized to engage the lock position notches on the valve lock plate so as to be able to lock the valve handle and the engaged valve in a desired condition.
For constructions that include such a lock lever, the requisite biasing is typically effected by a biasing spring connected between the longitudinal member and the lock lever at a position along the lengths of such members between a pivot connection and the proximate ends thereof. With such a valve handle, when a user grips and squeezes the proximate ends of the longitudinal member and the lock lever towards one another, the biasing spring is compressed and the lock lever pivots about the pivot connection to move the lever tip at the distal end of the lock lever away from the handle bar member, and out of engagement with the valve lock position notches on the valve lock plate, thus allowing a user to rotate the valve handle and the engaged valve stem to another position. When the user thereafter releases the proximate, or grip, end of the lock lever, the biasing spring will again bias the proximate end of the lock lever away from the proximate end of the longitudinal member thereby causing the lever tip at the distal end of the lock lever to move back towards the handle bar member and into engagement with a different lock position notch on the valve lock plate. In such manner, a user can control the degree by which the valve is maintained opened, without the necessity of manually holding the valve handle in position.
Because the discharge valves for the hoppers are positioned at the bottoms of the hoppers, access thereto for purposes of opening and closing such valves is often inconvenient, in part because of the limited ground clearance height of the valves and their positions generally approximately centered below the hoppers, as a consequence of which the valve handles must frequently be employed by users while such users are in awkward or less than desirable positions and conditions. Consequently, over the years, it has become desirable, if not customary, for valve handles to be constructed from aluminum or other lighter weight materials so as to lessen the strain on users as they attempt to handle and utilize such valve handles in awkward positions.
Unfortunately, despite the desirable qualities of such lighter weight materials and the desirable effects realized by the use thereof in valve handles, valve handles constructed of such lighter weight materials suffer from certain disadvantages, including wear characteristics that are worse than for heavier weight materials. Because of the increased wear characteristics associated with and experienced by such lighter weight materials, valve handles constructed of such lighter weight materials, and particularly the lever tips thereof that engage with the lock lever positions to lock the valve handles and engaged valves in desired conditions, suffer from greater and more rapid wear, which, over time, limits the efficacy of such lighter weight handles and requires more frequent replacement thereof.
Moreover, especially with the increased use of swing-away hopper tees, and because of their designs and the various external components thereof that extend sidewardly and outwardly below the valve stem, it has become increasingly common for users of valves handles to encounter additional space and operating restrictions when they attempt to use the valve handles to operate the valves.
Consequently, there has existed a desire and need for an improved valve handle that can be more easily operably employed by a user without encountering undue interference with other equipment at the bottoms of the hoppers and which can also be relatively lightweight while being more resistant, especially with respect to the lever tip, to undesirable wear.